The Cinderella Complex
by Maeve's Child
Summary: Alliance Marines come in all kinds, including over-achievers that try to save everyone. Princesses are best when they are the self-rescuing type.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**Part One: Earthborn**

_Earth, Chicago Metro Area, April 2172_

* * *

Cinderella Complex.

They say Keeley Shepard is practically the definition of the term. They, of course, being the social workers, the psychologists, the councilors and the other kids at the group home. But she's pretty sure they have it all wrong. It doesn't help that she's a blonde beauty with amber-gold doe eyes and rosy cheeks and people always judge little girls on their looks. She had questionable parents that disappeared off the grid - just one more little girl with no listed birthplace; a doll-like child who has no shortage of families who think they want to adopt her but keeps getting sent back from the foster homes – shouldn't need a group home in this day and age, but things always break when she's around. The superstitious say she's cursed.

All her life she's been tossed around from one place to the other, but especially at first when she still allowed herself remember. She thinks she remembers a plane from somewhere warm and coming into the cold snow of the Midwest. She remembers the dampness of her father's scratchy polyester parka against her face. She is sure she remembers that mom smelled like sweet perfume, smoke and stims.

But then she knows they were gone and it hurt too much to feel it. She was at the park with the cold mist in her face as she swung back and forth on the swing and once she finally came down and her little worn out shoes hit the ground, mom and dad were gone. The sirens came eventually and everything in her short life became something else. When the social workers tried to explain; _do you know why we're here? _And _we know it's so hard now that they are gone, but it will be okay. They might come back. You never know._ Keeley reluctantly remembers that conversation on the vinyl chair in the police station and the side-eyed looks of the officers when they took her away.

She didn't...wouldn't cry with their eyes on her, but when she slept, it was horrible and all the light bulbs shattered. She'd hear shouting and the tinkle of glass. Cursing; _that damned kid. _ There's a lump on one of her ribs where it cracked; it hurts fiercely to this day but she never tells anyone. She knows she's different even then. She has a half recalled memory of her parents arguing about the money and _those people; they won't just let this go. We let them expose you and her and now they are going to take her away_. She remembers mom saying _just like Rapunzel, some horrible witch wants to take my baby away_.

She remembers daddy's reply. She'll remember it for the rest of her life no matter how hard she tries to forget and cover up the words with a flip of perfect blonde hair and a wink and the curve of her cheek.

_You should have thought of that before you sold her._

Keeley has had years to tell the voice in her head to shut up, years of beatific placid expressions and years of training her voice not to tremble when she says _I don't have any family, sir_. She's so good at it it's almost eerie. Eventually, the feelings for anyone else stopped too, at least in the personal way of a lover or a friend.

It is easy to love the whole world in an idealistic and impersonal way; she wants to make it better, hell, she wants to save the whole damn world when she has her biggest, most fantastic dreams. Maybe it's because her life has been so cold, maybe it's because she thinks the world can be better; more likely it's because she wants to be adored. She's got a strange sort of romanticism and its excellent armor against despair. She makes herself happy with her big utopian dreams and she's the one person she can always rely on.

If there was a scientist or a doctor willing to treat these unwanted kids, there would have been an answer to all those broken light bulbs and plates when she's mad that she didn't throw and that boy's broken arm when he touched her without permission. The other kids always knew what it was; she's far from the only undocumented biotic. When she learns more, when she reads from the net about Biotics, she learns about _exposure to element zero and scandal _and all these things she doesn't totally understand. It does however make one thing very clear. The rumors about money and intentional exposure? Well, Keeley is living proof.

_You should have thought of that before you sold her._

Not that she'll tell. She'll never tell what she remembers. It's only a dream after all - it's almost like it was someone else's life. It doesn't matter. Besides, biotics are weird and they make her different and that's not what she's about. Doesn't matter that in time she learns to protect herself a bit; not throw things unless she wants to or her feelings get the better of her. Eventually, no one even knows anymore because she's so good at hiding it. She can throw a grown man across a room, and she's done it, but more often than more than not, it gets away from her so she doesn't use it at all.

She insists on learning to hack because she doesn't want to rely on something she can just barely control.

She can hack into any system, bypass any door lock. The group home was her first target and they never caught on. She bought a dress and warm boots that cost too much, color for her cheeks and perfume. Cash for her wallet and to bribe her way to protection from the gangs, too. Better to be a hack and be useful. She knows what happens to the pretty ones out on the streets, no matter how well the facilitators at the group home and the social workers think they are protecting her. Keeley wants to keep her pretty face and her dignity so a skill that doesn't require her to be on her back is the best insurance she can think of.

She's still willing to be rescued despite being self sufficient, despite being unable to let anyone in through the walls around her heart. She's not delusional or romantic enough to think he's a prince charming. She knows the score. But that doesn't mean she won't have a sweet smiling face and the curls in the end of her blonde hair and the whole package so he thinks he's saving her too. She'll find a boy like her, with more street cred than love in his life and who's not even twenty himself with too many tattoos and a growing addiction to stims he thinks he has completely under control.

Keeley plays Cinderella when it suits her and runs away from the group home with her rough hewn prince and away from her battered old life at midnight, just like any good fairytale princess is supposed to. Her escape is only missing a chiming grandfather clock and lost glass slippers. Better to run away now, than let them throw her out.

She has a date for when she was born but no place and she can't remember; April 11th, 2154 and this year she'll be eighteen and she'll be out on her own whether she's ready or not.

She's not, but she won't let anyone know.

Keeley starts her new life hacking into a bank terminal and getting arrested four days after her eighteenth birthday. The judge gives her two options: since her crime was reasonably minor - and _god damn _she has skills and the criminal justice system _does_ have doctors and it took them all of fifteen minutes to figure out she's a biotic - two choices; jail or the Alliance Navy.

Since she does have a Cinderella complex, but not in the way they think, she immediately enlists. She's got a bit of martyr in her blood and maybe a lot of invincibility. She survived being unwanted and abandoned at three years old in the rain. She survived the gangs and the drugs and the temptations. She survived those haunting words; _you should have thought of that before you sold her._ She still has her pretty face and her dignity, just like she always fought so hard for.

Now she has a future too.

* * *

**Part Two: Sole Survivor**

_Akuze, Colonial Landing zone, July 2179_

* * *

Didn't take long before they realized she's more than they expected. Most criminal kids given the chance at military service become grunts and soldiers. They thought maybe she might make engineer, but she's better than even that. Biotics, electronics, hacking and decryption? They immediately send her to Vila Militar in Rio and by the time she's twenty-one she's the top of her class, and N2. She'll go all the way to N7 to wear that admirable designation on her chest; of this she has absolutely no doubts.

Keeley Shepard does it all with perfect skin and pretty eyes and not one precious tear, even when it might be warranted. She lets those men rescue her; her fellow soldiers, diplomats, instructors; just one solitary night at a time. Never two; never more than that. _Come a bit close, but not too close. Come closer still, stay back._ She smiles at Toombs when she sends him away and she makes him think it's his idea to do it; it's regs, it's the rules and they only get to break them this once. Toombs is utterly in love with her, but he walk away thinking he's protecting her. Maybe he is - protecting her from herself, from getting hurt, from taking a chance at loving someone because that means you can lose them. He has exactly no idea that Keeley knows she could love him too, even though he's rough around the edges and maybe a bit unstable. It makes him more terrifying to her than a bullet but unsuspecting Toombs has no idea.

Shepard can hide anything behind that beautiful smile.

She likes the Phoenix brand armor best when she dances with her pistol because it is white and pink; she's beautiful and deadly and still has the biggest heart in the Alliance. Toombs says she has fairytale hair and sweet honey eyes and he's a terrible romantic, even as she keeps pushing him away. No one has to know that she won't let herself feel anything. Let him think that his romantic streak is the reason they need to be tragically kept apart by their superiors and maybe someday, if they are the same rank, if they both make N7... Shepard knows it won't ever happen. He's not leadership material because despite his unbelievable stamina, he goes sideways a little too easily. And thank goodness for that one perfect way out.

Shepard cares not a whit for regulations, but he doesn't have to know that.

It's her mission to earn her N7 designation that sends her here to Akuze. She's first Lieutenant and she's leading the squad. It's the first time its real authority and the real unknown looming. Toombs is her right hand man as always and it's surprisingly not awkward; she knows he's a damn tough Marine and she has no idea what they are walking into. She trusts him with her life, just not her heart.

And then it all breaks loose, hell has been given the name _Thresher Maw_, though she doesn't know if at the time. At the time it reminds her something from a nightmare, a gaping forty foot mouth with muscle and poison and it's grabbing her squad and they are disappearing into the sand.

When it's over, she's firing her last shells into the thing even though it's already dead. Its gruesome worm body is half flopped out on to the bare sand and its greasy green blood is oozing everywhere. There are bodies. _My god, there are bodies everywhere_. There were fifty of them when boots touched down. Now it's only her and the stink of blood and acid and gunpowder.

When they evac her, consoling colonists and with their help recovering sixteen _only sixteen _ of the bodies of her fallen comrades, she's told she performed in an admirable and effective fashion and they pin the N7 on her chest.

It's as heavy as a lead weight, but she won't have let those men and women die in vain. She won't let Toombs' death mean nothing and _fuck _that hurts so much more than she expected it would. She tried to protect herself, she tried to make sure she didn't care and although she knows she didn't love him, not like that at all, there is suddenly a Toombs' shaped hole in her life and it's bloody around the edges. But dammit, Keeley is a survivor, and _goddamn_ she can survive through anything. Someone else might have let those bodies, those corpses drag them down. Some might see blood on their hands. But not Keeley Shepard. Not N7 Lt. Commander Shepard. She didn't kill anyone - the Thresher Maw and bad intel did that job. Toombs' would be proud of her. She was just lucky and canny and talented enough to survive.

Keeley Shepard was the sole survivor of the mission on Akuze, but the _survivor _part is more important.


	2. Act One

**Act One**

**Part One: Command Decision**

_Virmire, September 10th, 2183_

* * *

It's her decision this time. On Akuze it was out of her hands and in the hands of whatever deity that runs this crazy show. But here, in this almost should be paradise of palm trees and blue waters, Shepard has to choose. And if she'd only known what was coming, if she'd been wiser she would not have gotten herself into this position.

It's the tactical choice; Lieutenant Alenko is closer and he's the officer and he has the technical skills - his even exceed her own, as do his biotics though she's loathe to admit either one. But no one will remember that. Shepard is horrified no one will believe that she chose with tactics and with pragmatism. He's not her lover, he's maybe just her friend that she looks at just a little too long and stands a little too close to...and...no one, not even Keeley really believes that. Just like Toombs', just like the haggard prince charming from her childhood; no one really believes that she didn't love them. No one could look into Keeley's eyes and be anything but certain. No matter how well she thinks she wears a mask, no matter how strong she thinks she is her heart has gone super nova yet again.

"It's the right choice and you know it L-T," Williams' voice crackled through the radio. And it _was _the right choice, the tactical choice, the commander's choice. Shepard wondered then why it felt like tearing her heart out instead.

No matter what she feels or doesn't feel about Alenko, Ash is her responsibility, her crew, her reluctant _friend,_ but she chooses anyway. Ashley Williams dies on her watch and it's just one more name for the list of the dead, along with the other 48 that died on Akuze and poor naive Jenkins.

Ash will take Toombs place, bringing the total to 50.

Keeley was able to take Toombs off the list. Found him alive, though the term was probably relative after years being trapped in a Cerberus lab and then years hunting down the scientists like animals. And they were animals, those Cerberus bastards and Keeley is a little sad she didn't have the heart to let Toombs just shoot that pig. But her training and her memory of the man she once loved (something she could only admit now that she was busy trying to hide feelings for someone else instead) just wouldn't let it happen, and she talked him down. Maybe he can get help now for what they did to him. It takes the edge off the guilt a little.

Now that it's over, now that the dust and the blood have settled and Saren is lost again, Shepard hid in her cabin trying to wrap her head around her new world. Keeley didn't totally understand Ashley and her fears and her wariness of aliens, yet that didn't make her suddenly missing presence any easier to bear. To Keeley, alien or human didn't matter. She could trust Garrus with her life, Turian or not. She could trust Wrex in all his lumbering anger. Nothing foreign or alien to his pain - his people being kept knocked down by powers greater with bigger guns and more funding. He sounded no different than the street kids she grew up with. Keeley couldn't agree there was no way out and no way to defeat the genophage - Krogan ought to train their own scientists if they want a cure - but either way, he was hardly as menacing as he tries to be. 800 pound Krogan and he's one of the saddest creatures she's ever met.

Despite it all, Wrex backed down even as she stole away what he saw as his last shred of hope. Somehow he believed her, and maybe it's because she believes it herself. It is the wrong time, Saren will only use his people, just like all the other Turians did before him. It breaks Keeley's heart to say it, knowing Garrus wouldn't do such a thing, but it's the only language the Krogan understand and it's the music she has to sing it with.

The Rachni queen gave her a lesson in singing. Keeley could never have imagined she could feel a sudden kinship for a giant...well,_ bug_, but she loved the poetic idea of songs - of a person or a people singing their song out into the universe. She imagine the Asari were naturally blue and cool, but with an undertone of childlike violet, although maybe that was just Liara. Turians sang in practical grey with standards of red and humans sang in green with threads of silver and gold. All such beautiful songs, weaving their way into the blackness of space and decorating invisibly between the stars like garlands. But the reapers sang a sour yellow note, a disjointed and flawed song despite their seemingly perfect technology; she heard it in Saren's voice and in the strange unnatural mottling of his skin.

Unlike the Rachni queen, Keeley's other senses were just as keen and her hearing and her imagination, she supposed and she could smell that she still wore the perfume of Virmire on her skin despite scrubbing; sulfur and seawater and gunpowder. She left a piece of her crew there and a piece of herself. She forgave herself, certainly. Keeley was strong. Keeley _survived_.

But Keeley had a bigger vulnerable spot than she wanted to admit, and she was hurt too.

* * *

**Part Two: Feeling Human**

_Ilos, September 25th, 2183_

* * *

Before Shepard left earth, before she'd ever gone into space, she'd often wondered if when you traveled faster-than-light, especially through the Mass Relays, if you would feel lighter. That was the backwards public school explanation of the Mass Effect after all.

She wondered while on route to the Mu Relay is she hadn't been right. When Alenko...Kaidan appeared at her cabin door under all the right pretenses Keeley felt a little like her feet weren't entire touching the deck plates. Nothing could change, and no promises were made. Nothing needed to be said - and Keeley still wasn't sure how to say anything anyway. It was a moment, a minute, and a brief heartbeat in time as the Normandy raced toward oblivion.

For a blink Shepard was just _Keeley_ for the first time in as long as she could remember. Skin on skin and month of feeling like a rubber band twisted too tightly released into pleasure and something more than physical sensation that she's never experienced before. Her life before evaporated and became so much smoke. Afterward, Kaidan slept and she watched, branding that image over all the others. The abandoned swing creaking in the cold air as the sirens raged in the distance, the eerie silence on the sand, the ozone tinged waves in the wake of the Mako...all burned away with only a clear path forward. Saren needed to be stopped but for once there was something beyond it, something more than her next assignment. God only knew what it might, if there was a god. But Keeley hoped there was. She hoped there was something more for her than being a soldier for the first time. Before it had been enough. It was so much more than she's had, so much more than a cold life in the ghettos of the city that it was a triumph just to be a soldier, a weapon. But there was more, and she saw a glimpse of it on the smooth caramel roundness of Kaidan's skin.

Maybe there was more to aspire to than utopia and universal peace. Nice ideas, those, but oddly empty for sustaining a life.

Then there were Geth. Always more Geth and gunpowder and the overwhelming staleness of air not tasted by mortal tongues for millennia. The Protheans left enough behind, just enough to give one inevitable direction. Just enough disjointed images, sorted by the cipher rattling in her skull to send them, _my god,_ through a Mass Relay in the bowels of the planet.

Keeley didn't want to try to wrap her head around the physics of the thing as the Mako tore through the fabric of space, Vakarian and Alenko were like memories more than physical beings beside her; breath was too hard to catch for the disorienting moments of sheer speed. It was nothing like space travel and everything like being born and spat out into the Citadel, expecting to be wet.

In the end, Saren ended his own life, the horror of his indoctrination finally clear to him. It hurt Keeley to see his face, the so familiar and so surprisingly human pain in his eyes. Maybe it was a sort of bigotry to call his pain human, but it was the only word she knew. Raw, real, familiar, _human_ pain. But even then, the reaper wouldn't allow him rest, and Shepard had to end the life of his mechanical self. It brought the horror to a new level.

The Geth, the reapers...they could never understand the humanity of life and of pain, the horror in Saren's eyes as he put his pistol to his head. They could never comprehend hope and desire; the urge of pleasure and the arch of parting. Most of all, they couldn't understand _love. _ Machines couldn't know, couldn't understand. Whatever Sovereign claimed to be, whatever ancient memories he carried before his destruction, his wisdom could never take that next step. They could never respect or value life beyond its resources, beyond usefulness into the place where it was important just to _be. _Whatever their plan was, they would burn through the galaxies like fire through dry grass with no more emotion than the flame has.

_And they were coming._


	3. Act Two

**Act Two**

**Part One: Guardian of the Gates**

_Cerberus Base, March 14th, 2185_

* * *

The three-headed dog is the guardian of the gates of hell, of the underworld and the land of the dead. It's only fitting then that his namesake, Cerberus, brought her back. The last memory she had before waking in a panic to an unfamiliar voice is the strangling, crushing feeling of the air being drawn out of her environmental suit. The vids say that your life flashes before your eyes when you come close to death, but its all bullshit. Shepard _died_ and she doesn't remember any such thing, no montage of lovers and happy moments and regrets. Just pain and no air.

When she comes to she expects for a moment to see Kaidan standing over her, just like she had when she woke from her tangle with the Prothean beacon. But she's alone and there's more confusion and more pain than she's fairly certain she's ever experienced. Her body feels odd; exploring hands on her ribs find the old knot of the untreated broken rib is missing but questing fingers find ridges of unhealed damage on her face. She wonders disconnectedly if she's ugly now, and that might change the direction of her life. She shakes it off when she hears the first gunshots.

It's a blur after that as much as it's anything. It isn't until she's in the shuttle, racing away with the soldier with the velvety but bland voice and the supermodel that makes Keeley feel her scars all the more keenly, that she allows herself the questions and the feeling.

_How long? _

_Two years._

It might as well be two decades, or two hundred years. She's dead to her old life, but not dead to her utopian dreams. Someone is taking human colonists and she's damned if she'll just let that happen. One of the three faces of the dog is toward the sun; for the betterment of humanity. She'll ignore the other two head snarling in the shadows for now.

_she won't let herself think about it; she almost had something, for a moment just a moment it almost felt like love_

They give her a new ship and an old pilot. Both are perfect and broken and not right but close enough. The darkness behind Joker's eyes wasn't there before and it smells like guilt. She did die rescuing him after all. But ever death was only temporary. She survived, even when the ship and the light in Joker's heart did not. Keeley Shepard always survives.

It is as much a part of her as anything else.

* * *

**Part Two: Light Years**

_Horizon Colony, May 9th, 2185_

* * *

Intel said Horizon; Intel said Alliance. Shepard tried not to think about it. Didn't matter in the big scheme. All that mattered was getting there in time. In the end, they didn't get there before the enemy did - Collectors they were known as, been acquiring specimens like specters, _they'd upheld her Specter status, not that if meant anything at all_, they were like the bad men from a fairy tale. They looked insectoid on the display - they had husks like nothing Shepard had seen before. They were changed, different. They were horrifying but she refused to feel anything.

They fell under the hail of bullets and of biotics like any other, as did the collectors. The Harbinger thing - first in one form, then another...it spoke like a reaper, like Sovereign, self-righteous and self-important. How a machine could be so smug, Shepard couldn't understand. But power and AI or not, eventually they retreated in defeat. Not without cost, as so many were gone, but even more had been spared and it was the first victory of her new life. Shepard tried not to think about how much machine she was.

Then _he_ was there and the world turned sideways.

"Shepard."

Her name in his voice was like butter melting on hot bread. She locked her knees. She wanted to soften against him, to relish in the quick brush of stubble that defied the morning razor, the warm leather of his skin, the tang of sweat tinged by fear. Instead, she stayed stiff, just as rigid as he, tense and tight like a tendon. There were new lines around his eyes, the ghosting of darkness smudged beneath with the glimmer of moisture on his lashes.

"I thought we had something Shepard. Something real. I…. I loved you...I wanted to believe the rumors that you were alive, but I never expected anything like this. You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance. You betrayed me."

_You betrayed me._

That's when her life flashed before her eyes. Not when she'd felt the air disappear into the vacuum of space, not any of the times her life was nearly snatched away, but now when Kaidan turned his back on her and walked away. Her life flashed before her eyes, and only a tiny bit had feelings she wanted to relive. Just a flash with her prince in ragged jeans, a stolen kiss from Toombs, _Ilos._ But Keeley survived and swallowed and signaled Joker. She did what she could to stamp down the ache in her lungs that threatened to spread. It made the knuckles in her hands tingle; she clenched her fists. It made her eyes burn; she turned her face into the cool breeze. She tried to use her old tricks to protect herself. But feelings were like water, like a rain swollen river coursing too fast over rocks; it was hard to hold back once the dam was blown.

* * *

**Part Three: Eidetic Memory**

_Illium, July 13th, 2185_

* * *

He leaps from the ceiling like a spider or like an angel from the old religion. He makes a believer out of Keeley when he ends his murder with a prayer. He is not human - his body moves differently, his flesh has an alien sheen; he is the color of a tornado sky with eyes as glossy and black as a gem. He is graceful and he draws Keeley to him from the first moment she lays eyes on him.

Thane Krios is a dying assassin and he agrees to fight with her to end his life in meaningful action. Maybe atonement. Keeley is never sure.

The threat of annihilation is everywhere. The collector attacks increase, their brutality is unmatched. Keeley learns to forget about the machines under her skin and she turns the perfect angle of her cheek to Thane's gaze. He seems more interested in her ability to fight than to be beautiful. When he thanks her for saving his son from following the assassin's path, his voice hitches in his throat.

He calls her _siha_ but won't tell her what it means. The river of emotions flows around him, but just like the waters of Kahje it is only serving to hasten his end. They both seem to know if, but it doesn't matter. She refuses to wait for him; she needs to stop the memories that seem as vivid as his own. She ignores Mordin's advice and tastes the rough scales on this flesh, the smooth leather in between, the softest ruby colored skin on his throat. It makes the world change colors, the bulkheads of the Normandy are more alive than EDI makes them, each member of the crew can watch them make love in her mind and she doesn't stop to care.

_Look at me_, she says in her head because her mouth can only move to kiss him. _I can feel and I feel for him and Kaidan is only a memory. _But the hallucination will not allow her deception - she cannot lie to her own mind. _I love Kaidan still; I always will and he tasted of salt and home, but Thane has claimed his own spot in my heart and he is seawater and sand. He is dichotomy and dissension and he tastes just like regret. Cerberus tastes like regret. Life tastes like regret but all there is, is now. All I can do is feel and take and give and he arches under skilled fingers just as I dance to his._

She surfaces from the water of passion and images to wonder if she makes him see things too, because he looks as wild as she feels. He tells her that _siha_ means _warrior angel_ and her heart is his...for now.

They are alive, _for now_.

* * *

**Part Four: Suicide and Roses**

_Omega Relay, September 2nd, 2185_

* * *

There's only one chance in a million they will even survive the jump, reaper IFF supposedly preventing their crashing full on into space debris or a star or a black hole, but even so, when they emerged from light speed, Joker let loose an inventive string of profanity and turned hard to port. Shepard heard the distinctive sound of metal on metal as the Normandy scraped against the debris of what was once a ship.

_Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore. Do you even remember that night before Ilos? That night meant everything to me… _

Shepard had been scraping up against things for long enough that the sound was part of her being. She wasn't entirely sure she was pleased to hear that metal shriek and the sound of her blood thudding through her ears. But there was still the chance for roses on a monument instead of the fate of all humanity on her shoulders and the guilt of being so much caught up in Thane that dying now seemed a small price to pay.

She wasn't in her right mind, full of dark thoughts. He said it was the after effects of her constant need to taste, the drug like effect of his skin was worse than any stim ,any hard core drug that she avoided so diligently back on earth. He tried to wean her, knowing that if they survived there was still hell to pay and three hundred thousand Batarian lives and Hackett was just holding off the dogs long enough for them to save the world. Shepard looked over at Thane, beside her and watching Joker's frenetic action to keep them in one piece, the orange glow of the UI reflected in the glossy surface of his eyes. They would be parted no matter what happened, but she was his _siha_ and if she lived part of him would live on and didn't she promise him she'd take him to see a desert?

Keeley Shepard _survived_; suicide missions could be _damned_.

She never regretted destroying the human reaper and the Collector base. The Illusive Man could go right to hell if he thought she was going to let an abomination like this chamber of horrors survive. He wouldn't be able to touch her or her ship soon enough. Powerful though he might be, he wasn't going to assault Alliance Headquarters. If she lived, that's where she was heading - after finding a nice place with too much dry heat and mountains of sand.

_But please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die — on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. I couldn't bear it if I lost you again._

She tried not to think about anything but living. She could do better for them all, for Thane, for Kaidan, for poor Kelly Chambers processed into raw DNA to feed the reaper, and for all of the sons and daughters and moms and dad and babies and assholes of all the systems and all the stars. She couldn't stop the reapers if she was dead. Even with the base destroyed, they were coming.

They were coming and nothing she did, no matter how hard she hit and how many Batarians died to slow them down, nothing was going to stop them.

Except maybe Keeley Shepard. Because she _survived. _It was this thing she did.


	4. Act Three

**Act Three**

**Part One: They Come**

_Earth, Vancouver Metro Complex, May 6th, 2186_

* * *

Vega looked as consistently bulging and nervous as ever. The news was vague, but she knew something was up the moment she hit the corridor and there were more running politicians and officers than she'd seen in...ever. Anderson appeared like a perfect stoic Marine and her forever Commander, _Admiral Anderson_ now though he rolled his eyes at the title when she said it with a healthy dose of snark. It was her fault, but better than _Councilor Anderson_, if he had forgotten_. But no rolling eyes, no humor today._

"We've lost contact with Luna base." A face like stone.

"It's the reapers."

Shepard pronounced the death sentence of all life in the galaxy with ice calm. Months of house arrest to quarters smaller than those on the Normandy but still her face and voice were as placid as an oyster. The calm came from months of contemplating the beatific look on Thane's face as he dug his bare feet in the sand and breathed dry air painless. Though each day he looked a bit paler, moved a bit more slowly, he smiled just the same and touched her like she was a statue of a goddess. In the end, they never _said_ goodbye. She left when he slept, but they knew it was forever. She left him knowing how she felt; she left him in the desert breathing easy in his sleep, with her sweat cooling his saltwater flesh though she never said a word.

She's thirty-two years old now, and has never said it. Can't even think it.

She follows Anderson with Vega behind; he worships her and doesn't know her at all. She wishes she could crack open her mask of beautiful, tough ex-Commander Shepard and show him what she really is, _earthborn, ghetto snipe, sole survivor with a horseshoe up her ass, and unable to love anyone. Or at least unwilling to admit it. _ She might be cool as ice, but underneath, she's had too much time to think. Too many memories she can't get rid of but she'll thank several of Thane's gods that she doesn't have his memory.

That's when a memory walks out of her past.

"Shepard?"

"Kaidan."

She never thought she'd see him again, no matter what letter he wrote or what he said, no matter...

_When things settle down a little... maybe... _

The reapers invading was hardly settling down but even so, there he was, same as before. Cleaner than Horizon, freshly shaven and out of armor, his sleek Alliance uniform skimming over a shape that was at once familiar but totally foreign - he was thinner, harder, older, different. Something passed between them, something in her gaze to his, the quirk of his mouth, the cant of her head in his direction. Something that was even more than familiar.

But now was the time for action, and killing and _god damn they are here..._

* * *

**Part Two: Almost**

_Citadel, Huerta Memorial Hospital, May 12th, 2186_

* * *

_Please. Please God don't die._

The skin around his eyes is bruised black. His brain is swelling and there is the whir and beep of machines feeling vital data to the doctors who are already too busy with streaming refugees. Keeley forgets to be Shepard, forgets to be strong because no one is looking and he can't tell her to leave. She holds him hand, cold and immobile, between her own.

"Don't die. We need you in this fight."

And it's the truth as she knows it. When the world fall apart around her, she knows _she wants_ a strong presence beside her and Liara's taken that spot, but it's just not right, it's not who she wants. But she's almost killed him and if he dies she'll never be able to tell him, she'll never be able to learn to speak, like a child raised by wolves.

"I need you."

And she doesn't care that he wasn't sure he could trust her anymore; that he feared she was just a construct, just a Cerberus machine. She would have thought the same in his position. And she worked with the enemy for long enough that for a while she thought they were allies. She didn't remember until The Illusive Man begged to spare the most horrific collection of bestial evil she'd ever been witness to, a place she knew he's use for all the wrong reasons and _oh my god what have I done_ because when she turned her back and turned herself in she knew she made an enemy who would not be easy to end.

But now, _I need _you is the most truth she can offer to him, more true that the touch of skin on skin, but she kisses the tips of his fingers anyway because no one else can see. Then she walks away to keep the war away long enough for him to live again. He has to.

Then he wakes and asks for her the same day she receives a letter from Thane. It feels like a punishment for her sins. She sees Thane first, his face turned towards the windows - a face she never expected to find so appealing in its alien-ness, but a face she learned to depend on, to need, to...care for. He turns and it takes all her control and knowing _he is awake now and waiting for her and Thane's time is coming to an end, and what sort of person is she if that's important?_

"Siha."

It was tearing open a wound she thought was sealed. She never thought she'd see him again; she'd hoped he'd allow his last days to be in the warm sands she'd found for him, that alien world in Asari space that was only a mining colony but they were happy to have him. She knew there was one loose end that wouldn't allow him to stay, one this he did regret in a lifetime of things maybe he should have regretted, but just the one, just the one; _Kolyat_ and he was here where there was medicine to make the last few days of Thane's life a few days more.

"I never thought I'd see you again."

And it was said behind words. _I had to close it off, end our time together even if it meant something to me. You are dying, you are leaving mean and no amount of fighting will change that. Why couldn't you have just died peacefully in the sands where we said goodbye, where we said good bye in peace and touch and no words to get in the way of what we can't say?_

"I missed you; I missed us." But he knows it is over, even now. The subtle turn of his mouth, the too frequent blinking, his breath just that much more shallow. He coughs. He lets her go.

Kaidan is waiting, the future, as bleak at it is, is waiting and maybe there is something she can fight for. But she will fight for Thane too, for Kolyat to live long enough to forgive his father even if he is genetically incapable of forgetting.

* * *

**Part Three: Something Real**

_Citadel, Apollo's Cafe, July 17th, 2186_

* * *

Thane died to protect her, to protect Kaidan, to protect the Salarian Ambassador from certain death. He dies with his son and Shepard at his side and it breaks her heart to see how strong his once troubled child has become.

_Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness. _

_Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand._

_Kalahira, wash the sins from this one, and set him on the distant shore of the infinite spirit. _

_Kalahira, this one's heart is pure, but beset by wickedness and contention._

He lets her go, and he sets her hand in Kaidan's.

_Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve._

_Guide this one, Kalahira, and she will be a companion to you as she was to me._

He prays for her soul and when he dies the guilt washes away like the waves washing the sand from the shore. Thane is her hero; he saved her from herself.

The eyes across the table are not drell, and slowly _slowly_ they've become less alien since the day Thane died and she looked at these same eyes down the barrel of her gun. Kaidan's eyes are like coffee or even more like that tea that Garrus brews for Tali that smells like cinnamon but he assures Shepard will kill her. Kaidan's the one she remembers now, a little. Some of the hardness in his face is gone, some of the tension in his shoulders has abated, but there is still anxiety between them. Too much unspoken, too many things left unsaid. Keeley still doesn't know when she'll learn to speak, but now time is bearing down on them. The reapers are here and slowly, they are harvesting the galaxy. There is disquietude as pervasive as the air now. _No more time to waste._

"I love you Shepard, I always have. I want to know what this thing is between us...I want to make it real."

But it's always been real. Even when she was in Thane's arms she never for a moment forgot that night before Ilos, when her world turned on its head and it wasn't just sex, not just touch but _touch_ all the way down into her soul. But cautious, so guarded they both were, both _are. _ But even so, he's said it. He's laid himself bare before her, just waiting for her to gather the courage. She faced a reaper, twice, three times. She's Commander Shepard and she's faced and beaten _death, why is she so scared of just one man..._

_"_I can't hide the way I feel about you, anymore, and I don't want to."

She doesn't say it, not yet. And then their drinks come and it takes everything she has not to spill them on the floor and leap over the table. But there's dinner first and a sanity check and a long conversation about _everything_ including Thane and the doctor on the Citadel, and the fact that he always felt like he was hers, even when he thought she was dead. _And isn't it a damn lucky break you aren't dead so I don't have to live the rest of my life like a celibate monk and it's a goddamn invitation laid out there on the table._

Keeley Shepard has never been the aggressor before. She's always been Cinderella and the Prince has to be the one to make the move. But Kaidan's no prince, he's just a man and the fairy tale was over the day the reapers came from dark space to destroy everything. Now is time for childhood fantasies, the dreams of a little girl on earth looking up at the stars and dreaming of a better life, it's time for those dreams to disappear into the aether where they belong to be replaced by the dirt and the sweat and the reality that is _life. _

Life and Kaidan are not always perfect; it is not always sweet, sometimes it points a gun at your head before saying I love you, but it's always warm and kind (even when he's not) and when it snores its better than the strings of a thousand perfectly tuned violins because he's here, he's back and if she has to kill them all...but she doesn't have to do it herself. No matter what the vids say, Shepard has never been alone in this fight. She's only taken it on with the best of the best at her back.

As for today, she takes his hand from across the table and he kisses her palm again.

"No more teasing." And he grins and nods and lets her lead him away, trying to behave like _everything is normal and it's a regular day _through the corridors of the Citadel, on the crowded elevator where they stand a little too close but no one notices, through the maze of the Normandy to her cabin where the door is barely slid closed behind him and she's got him pinned up against the slick metal because she's a lot stronger than she looks.

She kisses him and he tastes like coming home, and a little like Batarian Shard Wine.

_This time it won't be sweet and he won't take his time, no matter what he thought he might have done. She needs him to remind her that there is something worth fighting for, that she can still feel pleasure __not just pain and she needs him like breathing, needs to be closer, so close to him than they can never be apart again. They are on the floor; that's as far as she allows him and then he's on top of her and god, are those tears? He's as close as he can be then, not just his body but his whole self feels like its inside. That's when it happens; that's when it finally wells up from inside of her. It's been a whole life, a whole universe of waiting._

"oh god how I have always loved you"

She's said it now, and survived that too.

* * *

**Part Four: The Crucible**

_Citadel, August 1st, 2186_

* * *

Shepard heard her radio blaring the call to retreat as the light engulfed her. She was pain, only pain and blood and moving forward. Consciousness receded and she heard, more than felt the thump of her body slamming hard on to…metal? There was the scent of blood in the air, some hers and some older as she dragged herself to her feet.

"Shepard."

"Anderson?"

They'd made it; the Citadel. She had to assume, since it was as foreign as any alien world. There were piles of corpses even more gruesome than the Collector base where at least the bodies were like little flies in glass jars.

Shepard struggles. Keeley wonders in Kaidan made it back to the Normandy. Shepard wonders if her ground team, if Garrus and Vega, are okay. Keeley hopes Steve found a safe place to hide when the shuttle went down. She limps up the ramp and pushes the pain down.

No time to hurt.

She tries to forget everything and just keep moving.

Anderson appears over the rise, turns, struggles to keep his feet. There is a monster who used to be a man who appears; she still doesn't know his name, but she is certain she wants to kill him. She tries to lift her pistol to his face, but she can't. She can _feel _him inside her skull like bees. He won't let her.

Eventually the gun goes off, but it is Anderson that the bullet hits. Keeley cringes; Shepard is stoic.

"It's one thing to control me, but another to control the reapers."

She wants to shoot him, but instead she pleads with him. She sees the truth of it; has seen the truth and watches as the trust washes over The Illusive Man like a wave rushing at high tide.

_Indoctrinated._

He ends his life with a bullet and regrets. Shepard feels a twinge, but she's not sure if its pity or anger. She has no time to guess at it. The arms open, and she feels a weight lift. It was all she had to do and now it's the job of the Crucible engineers to do their thing _my god is it over?_ Anderson falls to the floor and Keeley sits beside him. Their blood puddles on the floor.

"You did well child. I'm proud of you."

And then he is gone. Shepard isn't sure if he's unconscious or dead, and it really doesn't matter. Whatever happens, they are sure to be dead. Her only regret is not telling Thane she loved him before she died.

But she said it once, and in the end, it was enough. She knew love and she survived it. If she didn't survive….

"Shepard, Commander…it's not firing."

She is delirious now, only marginally conscious, but she tries for her feet. She reaches, she struggles.

_She falls._

* * *

**Part Five: The Catalyst**

_Citadel, August 1st, 2186_

* * *

She wakens in a dream. Shepard isn't completely sure she's even alive. _Were they right? Is this heaven? It that an angel? God why does it hurt so much if I'm dead?_

It's not a dream, it's not the afterlife. It's a test. It's another goddamn test _won't this ever end and this fucking AI is just droning on and on and she just wants to unload the gun into its face._

"Why would I do anything but destroy you? You are wrong; I've proved you wrong. These ships that are fighting you? They are run by both organic and synthetic. We have already found a way to work together without becoming one creature. Without killing each other; we aren't perfect but we are free. Who the hell are you…?"

But the thing isn't listening and she's wasting her voice. It can't think like that. Even with all its power, it is as shackled as EDI was before Joker set her free. It might have destroyed its creators, but its own creations control it now. Even Legion could see beyond its programming, but the Catalyst cannot.

It has lived for millions of years and the form it chooses to take is aptly ironic. It is still only a child and it thinks with a child's limited nature. Cycles _are_, but they are not always the same. Just one person can change the course of history.

Keeley Shepard destroys the reapers without hesitation.


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**Part One: Dog Tags**

_Earth, London, August 2nd, 2186_

* * *

At first, it was like being underwater.

Keeley had only been to a beach once, but the experience stuck in her head especially since she'd been pulled in a riptide and dragged under the water. Only her biotics were enough to save her, but she still recalled the odd calm feeling, a feeling like cold and winter in her bones when there just wasn't enough oxygen to her brain. The strange grey gleam of light through the water was burned into memory.

Her ears rang. She felt the flutter of her eyelids and then, finally, the most agonizing breath of her life. All the pain she had ever known, every bruise, every burn, _dying - _all the pain rushed over her like the water had closed over her head in the ocean. She tried to scream, but her mouth was blood.

She made a sick, wet sound and thought of nothing but struggling towards the next gulp of air or towards death.

There was murmur of voices; shouting. The world brightened and there was a rush of chill London air.

"_Jesus Christ._"

The voice was far away and unfamiliar.

"Sergeant! SARGEANT! You'll never believe it. I can't…"

There was a face then, close enough to feel the brush of breath, warm against the damp of her face; the jangle of her tags.

"God in heaven sir, we found _Commander Shepard_!"

* * *

**Part Two: Temporary Retirement**

_Earth, __Cavendish Beach, Prince Edward Island, Canada__, July 9th, 2187_

* * *

"Not sure this is as tropical as I was hoping for, Shepard."

Garrus was complaining, but he didn't really mean it. It was warm. It was sunny. The sand was golden and soft and the waves were rolling just so. The air smelled of salt and seagrass and it didn't really matter that it was Canada instead of Brazil.

The docs were pissed that Shepard had checked herself out. She practically needed to pull a gun, but she was beyond tired of staring at the green hospital wall; she was too pale and the sun bronzing her skin helped hide the scars. There were some things medical technology could fix and some things they couldn't.

It still took time; though less than coming back from the dead, apparently.

The Catalyst lied and Shepard was the least surprised of anyone. She saw through its literal view of existence. Despite its dire warnings, its attempts to control her, she knew it _lied. _She tried not to think about it now – the world was repairing itself, the wounds were healing. She tried not to think about the way the tendrils of its control crept into her, maybe using the Cerberus implants to get a foothold inside of her.

In the end, the destruction had been far less than it had prophesied. The geth, now individuals due to the upgrades from Legion had shielded themselves. The remaining heretic geth perished, but Shepard had a hard time feeling any sympathy. The relays were damaged, but not beyond repair and the amount of tech and resources from the salvage of the reapers were going to keep scientists across the galaxies busy for years.

Keeley wondered if EDI died because of the Catalyst's destruction, or because the Normandy was lost.

She tried to come to terms with it but considering the lack of wreckage and the lack of bodies...it was so fucking _hard_. There was so much death, and so many MIA, she wondered if they would ever be able to account for them all.

Instead of wallowing, instead of giving up after everything she'd accomplished, every odd she'd defied, she lounged on a beach with a turian who looked all bony and dinosaur-like as he soaked up the sun. She had more scars than he did now, but he insisted hers were cuter. Tomorrow he was headed on a transport for Rannoch. He didn't like to be away from Tali any longer than he had to, but _no Shepard without Vakarian, right? _He was a good friend; Shepard wasn't always worthy of it.

"It's as tropical as I can handle, Vakarian, you scaly bastard."

Garrus chuckled. Shepard closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, digging her toes under the warm sand into the cool dampness below.

"I'm glad you lived."

"I'll let you know when I agree."

"Still?"

"Yeah, still."

She was surviving, as best she could. She scars hurt, but the sun helped. Her insides felt numb, but not much helped with that.

* * *

**Part Two: Admirals and Elbows**

_Earth, Vancouver Metro Complex, October 2nd, 2187_

* * *

They made her an Admiral, which was completely idiotic. But they gave her an office and a shiny new uniform and sometimes they asked advice about strange things like the Geth settlement on Rannoch and the mating rituals of the Drell.

The long sleeves of her blue jacket covered all the scars except the ones on her knuckles and the two creeping into her hairline where they cut open her skull to keep her swelling brain from killing her. She knew they could be fixed, but they weren't just scars, they were badges of honor. Made her look more bad-ass and less princess anyway.

She saved the world after all, couldn't be Cinderella forever.

Ships had started coming home, slowing streaming into the Sol system like lost baby chicks, burned around the edges. It was hard not to hope when the lists came across her desk. Lists and lists of names, some dead, some wounded but even more healthy and praising her name. There were the happy screams and tears of reunions at all hours echoing everywhere.

Vancouver became a city of hope, just like London had become a symbol of survival.

So many ships had hit the relays before the Crucible fired; heeding the call for retreat they sped across the galaxy hoping for somewhere to hide. Those that had been caught in the shockwave from the Citadel's explosion were flung wildly through the stars missing their intended destinations by light years. Like a lot of other technology, they had damaged components – anything linked to a network, like comm systems, databases, research libraries; they burned out with much of the data being corrupted. Only stand alone systems, FTL drives and life support mostly, were unaffected. But that meant a lot of ships having to navigate home by piecing together old star charts or finding the nearest inhabited world and filing through their back-ups were finally coming home and might be coming home for months or even years to come.

Every day became one more day the Normandy was still MIA and one more day of assholes and elbows. _Admiral Shepard_ covered up Keeley's weaknesses with perfect Marine bravado.

She drank beer at Vega's grave sometimes.

* * *

**Part Three: If the Shoe Fits**

_Earth, English Bay, Vancouver, December 23rd, 2187_

* * *

Keeley met Amanda Alenko at the Thanksgiving Remembrance Celebration at Alliance headquarters. The powers-that-be made it clear it was not a _memorial service_ because there were still people coming home all the time.

Amanda recognized the woman her son had reluctantly told her about, more than she recognized the hero of the galaxy. Keeley was grateful for her sudden and immediate friendship. She couldn't remember having a mom of her own; Amanda Alenko was a widow and grieving mother and gratefully clasped her ersatz daughter into the bosom of her family like she'd always belonged there.

_It wasn't what either of them wanted, but it was close enough._

Amanda had insisted Keeley come stay for Christmas and she couldn't think of a reason to say no. Strands of blonde whipped around her face in the brisk of the wind out here on the balcony overlooking the bay. The remains of the sunlight painted the snow and the rolling water in a dozen shades of blue and grey.

Garrus would have been completely pissed off by the temperature. It made her smile.

The sliding door to the house muffled the oddly distressful little family noises. It was surreal, like a painting or some sentimental vid in there – a tree with little lights and extended family and the smell of ginger and nutmeg and fireplace smoke. It was more family than Keeley had known outside the Normandy and they were all too polite in that particular Canadian way that allowed her some privacy despite obvious concern for her well being.

In a half hour they'd have ham and turkey and a table that looked like a magazine cover but everything still tasted a little bit like ashes. She'd eat anyway. That's what animals do when they need to survive.

The voices had been rolling like the waves on the bay, roiling higher, receding back; cresting into white foam and then falling into silence. She heard the silty sound of the door sliding open and she braced herself to go back in and put on her brave face.

_She could be brave for Amanda. She'd done so much for Keeley, she'd shared baby pictures and stories and told her everything Kaidan told his mom when he thought she was dead and gone. She could do it for a woman who's heart was a thousand times stronger than her's was; she saved earth, she survived the impossible and instead of living she shuffled through survival …._

"Shepard."

Keeley turned around. _That voice. Those brown eyes and Jesus Christ..._The air was pulled out of her lungs. It was easier to breathe in the vacuum of space.

"I..." she coughed. "Wha...how?" She took a gasping breath. "Where the hell have you been? What did you do with my ship?"

A laugh like hot coffee. "I was hoping for something like in the movies, but I suppose I earned this on Horizon, didn't I?" A fluid shrug, as familiar and warm as a blanket dropping across her shoulders. "Brought the ship back in one piece. It's a hell of a story, but I brought the Normandy and everyone else home...except EDI. Joker's not quite the same, but I think he'll be okay eventually." A wistful smile. "Anyway, sorry I'm late."

Keeley's smile was lopsided and ridiculous and she wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to get so goddamned lucky.

"I forgive you," she said, regaining her footing and her senses. "_This time. _Just promise to never do this again."

"Don't worry, I'm not letting you out of my sights again Commander."

"It's _Admiral_ now."

A single black eyebrow raised. "Should I salute?"

"I don't think that's necessary, _Major Alenko," _the mirth returned to her voice. She heard the tinkle of laughter. They had an audience and it only seemed fitting. "I think you should just kiss me."

_A step forward, two. This close and even closer. _

"And that's an order, _Major_."

"Aye, aye ma'am."

_The glass slipper fit perfectly._


End file.
